We concluded yesterday's passage with this information, "But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." Today we take some time to learn more about who this man Noah was.
"This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God." (Genesis 6:9) Noah wasn't perfect, but righteousness is accredited to him because of his faith. In the same way, the Bible tells us that righteousness was accredited to Abraham because of his faith. (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3) When we arrive at the account of Abraham's life, it will be clear to us that he wasn't a perfect man, but his faith in the Lord is what saved him. The same could be said of us all. As long as we live in frail human bodies we are going to make mistakes, but the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is imputed to us for our faith in Him. Our salvation doesn't come through our own good deeds or efforts to obtain righteousness by human means, which the prophet Isaiah says is like wearing filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), but by being clothed with the righteousness of Christ. "For by grace we have been saved by faith, not by works." (Ephesians 2:8) It is faith that pleases the Lord and causes Him to accredit us with righteousness, for without faith "it is impossible to please God". (Hebrews 11:6)
So Noah wasn't a sinless man, but compared to the people of his day whose thoughts were "evil all the time" (Genesis 6:5) he was a shining example of godliness. He walked faithfully with his God. You can't walk with someone unless you keep in step with them. This is what Noah was doing, keeping in step with God, maintaining communication with Him every day, consulting Him about every aspect of his life. Noah walked so closely with the Lord and was so used to talking to and hearing from the Lord in prayer that when the Lord warned him of the coming flood, he immediately took the action he was instructed to take. "By faith Noah, being warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family." (Hebrews 11:7a)
Has the Lord ever warned you about something? There have been times when I've felt very troubled in spirit about certain situations and certain people. I wasn't sure what was wrong but something seemed "off". Several times I shrugged off those feelings, to my own regret. The older I get and the longer I've been in the faith the quicker I am to just be obedient to these warnings. I don't always know what's wrong with a particular situation or with forming a close friendship with certain people, but I don't have to know why the Lord is warning me to steer clear. If the Lord is telling me to keep my distance it's because He knows something I don't. I've encountered bitter betrayal by not heeding His warning about hanging around with certain people who appeared to be genuine friends but who actually had selfish hidden motives. I've made decisions that weren't right for my life and have had to deal with the mess and regret that resulted from not obeying the Lord. When we feel the Lord saying to our spirit, "Watch out!" the best thing we can do is immediately obey.
We don't know the world population of Noah's day, but he alone and his family will be saved from the great flood that is soon to come. Out of everyone living on the earth in those days, he alone was honoring and serving the Lord. It didn't take many generations for the world population to descend into lawlessness and depravity. "Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways." (Genesis 6:11-12)
What exactly were these people doing? The Bible doesn't give us the specifics. But imagine if everyone in the world were godless and violent. In a situation like that, pretty much anything goes. If a person wanted something that someone else had, he took it by force. Sexual immorality is bad enough in our own day, but at least we have laws in place to prosecute those convicted of rape or child molestation. Imagine a society where no one is going to punish anyone for anything. If a man stronger than you wants to sleep with your wife, he's going to beat you up or kill you so he can sexually assault your wife. If a person is a pedophile, there is no courtroom in which he or she can be convicted and sentenced to prison. The only retribution a child molester has to fear is that the child's family will come after him. But suppose a person wants to abuse his or her own children or beat his own wife? Who is going to stop him? I think in Noah's day the people of the earth had the attitude that it was "every man for himself". If you wanted something, you took it, even if it belonged to another person. It was survival of the fittest, with the strong exploiting the weak. People were beating their employees if they made a mistake. People were killing each other over petty arguments. People were preying on each other in every way possible as they fell deeper and deeper into every kind of depravity. No matter what we imagine in our minds, I believe it was even worse than we think. We've never had to live in a society where there weren't laws and penalties, and yet there is a great deal of violence and immorality in our society. A society where no one is accountable to anyone else would be like hell on earth, and I think that's what the world was like in Noah's time.
"So God said to Noah, 'I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.'" (Genesis 6:13) God is going to commission Noah to build the ark and it will take him and his sons a long time to build it. During those years the Lord is giving the people of the world a chance to repent. If any of them had repented, they too would have found safety on the ark. If a revival had broken out and many many people had repented and turned to the Lord, I think the Lord would have called off the flood. But during the years Noah built the ark, he preached the word of the Lord to the people and they did not listen. We know he preached the word of God because the Apostle Peter tells us that Noah was a "preacher of righteousness". (2 Peter 2:5) Everyone was aware that Noah was building the ark for a flood he said the Lord told him was coming, even though it had never yet rained on the earth. Everyone was talking about Noah, this "crazy man" who believed water was going to fall from the sky and flood the world and kill everyone who didn't love the Lord. The world population was not spread out enough at this time to prevent everyone from hearing about Noah and the huge ship he was building. No doubt people came to see it and to laugh at him while he warned them they were sinners who needed to repent.
I can't help wondering how difficult it may have been for Noah to keep getting up every morning to work on the ark and to preach to everyone who showed up to gawk at him. But Noah, this man of faith, kept on keeping on. That's what faith enables us to do. When we know we are obeying the Lord, people may laugh at us or talk about us behind our backs, but knowing that we are in the Lord's will is going to give us the strength to continue. I'd rather be right with my God than be right with the world. There is no safer place than to be smack dab in the middle of the Lord's will. Being in the Lord's will won't always be easy. In fact, it's often harder than taking the sinful route and going with the flow. We are going to face opposition from unbelievers and even from the devil himself when we are committed to obeying the Lord. But when we walk faithfully with our God, we have all the power and strength and support of the Holy One behind us. And if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)
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